by Andrea Beatty
ages: 10+
First sentence: “Some people think the cicadas bring trouble when they come to town.”
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Review copy provided by the publisher for the Cybils (2008, I think.)

Lily is invisible. Not really, but she’s as good as: she never talks, she never looks people in the eye. She’s been shuffled off to the side in the two years since her brother Pete’s accident, which Lily feels responsible for. She’s been carrying around the guilt and as a result, has all but shut down. On the other hand, she is a grand observer, and when a new girl, Tinny, comes to town, Lily observes some pretty strange things about her. This creates a mystery, and it’s up to Lily, the silent observer, to figure everything out.

I remember throwing this one at C about a year ago, and she loved it. So much that she asked me to read it so she could talk to someone about it. (Bad mom moment. Sorry.) I agree: it’s a good, solid novel for a 10 year old girl. It’s got mystery and a little bit of suspense, and nothing is too heavy-handed (even though there is Death and Grief), which is a relief. (I do get tired of heavy handed Death and Grief books.) The resolution is nice, and Lily’s an interesting character to get to know. On top of that, it’s a summer book: sunshine, heat, water, small town. And Beatty knows how to go for mood; you can feel the summer radiating from this slim book.

A good, quick read.

by Jennifer L. Holm
ages: 10+
First sentence: “My brother Wilbert tells me that I was the first ever girl born in Nasel, that I was A Miracle.”
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This one has been on my radar for years, but was never quite enough to push me to read it. However, with the buzz about the sequel — The Trouble With May Amelia — I got curious enough to pick up both of them at the library a couple weeks back.

It helps, too, that I’ve been in the mood for middle grade fiction.

May Amelia is the only girl on the Nasel river, in the middle of rural Washington, 1899. She’s twelve, has seven older brothers, and always seems to be Getting Into Trouble. She’s both A Miracle to her family and That Troublesome Girl, something which she finds terribly conflicting. All she wants to do is have adventure: go fishing, maybe hunting, and run around like her brothers, but with her Mama pregnant for the first time in a long while, much of the household work falls to May Amelia. It’s not an easy life but it’s a good one, or at least May Amelia will come to think so.

It’s not a book with a lot of plot — there is some, but to tell you what happens will spoil much of the charm of the book — but it’s one that holds your attention. It’s a grand example of voice: May Amelia’s personality comes through loud and clear, and she’s an interesting, amazing girl to get to know. She feels deeply, and lives fully, wanting to be treated the same as her brothers. Holm’s affection for the stories and the Finnish immigrants is plain in the storytelling; there’s a delightful homeyness to the book that just makes one smile, even through the tough times.

For there are tough times: Holm doesn’t sugarcoat the past at all. It’s gritty, but never so much that it’s not accessible to the middle grade audience it’s intended for. Instead, it gives an honest, yet loving, look at a homesteader’s fate, and life for a girl around the turn of the century. Both of which makes this book priceless.

by Gary Schmidt
ages: 11+
First sentence: “Joe Pepitone once gave me his New York Yankees baseball cap.”
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Doug Swieteck had a decent, if a bit rough, life. That is until his dad — because of his friend Ernie Eco — up and moves the family to “stupid” Marysville, New York for a new job. It’s 1968, and Doug’s oldest brother is off in Vietnam, and things are tight at home. It’s not easy settling in to the new town, especially since everyone has Doug and his older brother (not to mention his slacker and somewhat abusive father) pegged for hoodlums.

Things go up and down for Doug — who has one of the more personable voices I’ve read in a long time; he’s speaking directly to the reader, but only once does the whole “dear reader” thing — as he discovers James Audubon’s drawings of birds. I’ve never seen the pictures live, but from the illustrations in the book, I can see why they move Doug so fundamentally. It’s a look at how art and nature can influence our lives for the better, if one takes the time to understand it. In fact, if I had to pick a real theme of the book it would be that: people are more than the sum of their parts, and by taking the time to get to know and understand them, the world can be a better place.

The book could have teetered over into the maudlin, with issues of domestic violence and the war in Vietnam. But it never did. It stayed right on the edge of dark and heartbreaking, infused with hope and light and humor. It’s one of the most hopeful books I’ve read in a long time, and definitely one of the most perfect.

by Rick Riordan
ages: 11+
First sentence: “Carter here.”
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When we last left our erstwhile heroes, siblings Carter and Sadie Kane, they had defeated the god Set but had realized there was a greater threat: Apophis, the god of Chaos, is rising, and if the Kanes don’t find a way to stop him, he will swallow the sun and the world as we know it will end. To do this, the Kanes need to piece together the Book of Ra — no easy task — and wake the Sun God in hopes that he can rally the gods and magicians in order to put a stop to Chaos once and for all.

It sounds like a tough job, but if anyone can do it Carter and Sadie can — with a little help from new trainees Walt and Jaz, as well as the god of dwarves, and one of my favorite characters, Bes.

A note of warning: it’s a nearly 500-page book, and the first 100 pages are glacially slow. So slow, that for the first time I can remember, I considered abandoning a Riordan book. I stuck it out: it is Rick Riordan after all, and I just didn’t believe he could write a clunker. And he didn’t. I’m going to pull out the tired rock analogy here, because it fits. This book is a huge, enormous boulder. And once it gets going, it really goes. It’s interesting, and funny, and uses magic in clever ways. I still feel like I’m missing something with not knowing my Egyptian mythology well, but for the most part I thought this book gelled better than The Red Pyramid. At the very least, while the book wraps up, it leaves for some interesting threads to be dealt with in the next novel.

There’s something for everyone: twists and turns, adventure and a wee bit of romance, magic and intrigue, humor and suspense. In the end, it’s more than worth the time it takes to get through the beginning.

by Lauren Myracle
ages: 10+
First sentence: “You’re invited to a Super Fabulous Flower Power Powwow!”
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Review copy sent by the publisher

I turned around and read this one as soon as I finished Luv Ya Bunches; I really did want to see what Katie-Rose, Yasaman, Camilla and Violet were up to next. It’s the second week of school, and even though they’ve all declared themselves FFFs (flower friends forever), there’s still a few bumps that they need to iron out.

Katie-Rose is having problems because another girl, Natalia, is making the moves on Yasaman. Part of it is because of Yasaman’s idea to get rid of the Cheezy D’Lites as a snack food. Natalia wants to be a part of it, and Katie-Rose is having sharing and space issues. It’s not pretty, to say the least.

Milla like-likes Max, and is tentatively reaching out to a friendship/whatever fifth graders do with him. Until there is a Tragic Incident which threatens to derail everything. And even though the book suggests it’s about Violet, she really only plays a marginal role: she stands up for the slightly odd Cyril when he’s being picked on by the evil Modessa (of whom there is an interesting insight near the end of the book), and she faces seeing her mom in the mental hospital. I was expecting more from Violet, but it really seemed to be Katie-Rose’s book.

That said, it was still fluffy fifth-grade fun. Myracle has the age group, especially girls, down-pat, which made the characters (this is me as a mom speaking) quite delightful. And, again, she puts enough in the books to make them more timeless and less pop-culture, while maintaining the pop-culture appeal for the kids. It’s a good series.

by Lauren Myracle
ages: 10+
First sentence: “(Shot from Katie-Rose’s sunshine yellow video camera)”
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It’s the first day of fifth grade, and Katie-Rose is stoked. And nervous. She just really, really wants a friend. Sure, she’s got Max, but he’s a boy, and while he’s a good friend, he’s not BFF material.

Little did she know that by the end of the week, she would have not one BFF, but four. We get to know them as they figure out their budding friendship: there’s Katie-Rose, of course; but also Yasaman, Turkish Muslim, class observer, and computer wizard; Violet, the new girl with a bit of a tough secret; and Milla, former popular girl who’s trying to figure out what real friendship is. Told through alternating viewpoints, we get to see into the heads and hearts of these four girls as they bond and stand up to the class bully.

I don’t usually go in for books that are so embedded in pop culture, but to my surprise, in spite of the cover, this one wasn’t. Sure, it’s got texting and IMing and cell phones and video cameras, but Myracle does a good job balancing the pop culture with a good old-fashioned story of bullying, lying, and the meaning of friendship. I liked the girls: they were well-developed, and rang true to the whole fifth-grade mentality. The pre-teen angst, the concern about fitting in and yet wanting to be true to one’s own self. Myracle tackled all that with humor and love for the age, for the problems and for the characters. And most importantly, she doesn’t talk down to her readers: the plot is simple without being simplistic. There’s a bit of a crisis with a missing bobble-headed turtle (okay, I kind of want a bobble-headed turtle now), but for the most part it’s just about the girls.

Which is perfectly fine by me.

by Adam Gidwitz
ages: 11+
First sentence: “Once upon a time, fairy tales were awesome.”
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Throughout the decades, fairy tales have been watered down. One could blame Disney, or blame the fact that we’ve come to believe that children can’t handle violence. That somehow, scary stories, stories with blood and gore are bad for them. And I’m not sure I disagree: violence for violence’s sake can be desensitizing. But the Grimm fairy tales aren’t that way. Yes, they’re scary, yes they are violent, but it seems to all have a purpose.

Adam Gidwitz doesn’t just retell a few of the more obscure Grimm tales. He takes the Hansel and Gretel story and morphs it from a weird step-mother-hate story into something more. There’s kings and queens, danger and temptation, loss and redemption, and dragons! It has everything. Which, even though sounds a bit like overkill, works. Gidwitz gave the original story depth and purpose. And yes, by keeping the tales creepy and violent and fascinating, Gidwitz embodies the original Grimm tales. It’s fascinating and wonderful.

But the best thing about the novel is the narrator. Seriously. Having an active narrator in a story like this is a tricky thing. It could have fallen flat on its face, and maybe for some people it will, because (s)he interjects with humor and explanations quite often as the story goes along. It pulls the reader out of the story, but it doesn’t pull them away from the story. It works as an interjection, because it’s not intrusive. And I think, for kids especially, it actually helps having a narrator — a storyteller, actually — looking over your shoulder, giving you information you need to not only process what’s going on, but to really enjoy it as well.

Excellent.